Keynote

Source: Detroit Metro Times

Sustainability in Flint and Beyond… A difficult, but crucial, conversation we foreground in our 2016 Showcase is the ongoing trauma in Flint, MI, where thousands of residents — many of them young children — were exposed to lead poisoning through the local water system. Our conversation with Curt Guyette, Investigative Reporter at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, who brought this human tragedy to public attention, focuses on the failure of key social institutions and safeguards in Flint and in Lansing. At the same time, we hope to prevent similar crises from occurring in the future, by examining how water and urban sustainability can be better implemented in Flint and communities across America.

Curt Guyette joined the ACLU of Michigan in the fall of 2013 as interim media liaison, and then made the transition to investigative reporter, a newly created position funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation. He now writes about exclusively issues involving emergency management and open government.

Prior to joining the ACLU of Michigan, Curt worked as a print journalist for more than 30 years, the last 18 of which were spent at the Metro Times, an alternative newsweekly based in Detroit. Along with a deep-seeded irreverence toward the powerful, his work has been shaped by compassion for the underdog, and a relentless desire to see justice—be it social, economic or environmental—served.